


A Light in the Dark

by koalaboy



Category: Lucifer (Comic), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: M/M, They are gay, for like tw, mention of amputation i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 05:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17360273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalaboy/pseuds/koalaboy
Summary: Severed nerves sent jolts of pain up Lucifer’s sides, muscles spasmed and twitched and caused him to stop and grit his teeth. His whole back locked tight as agony coursed through him and the scars on his back - pink, ridged, and so very sensitive - prickled and burned under the cloth of his shirt.“Morpheus?!” he called out into the Dreaming.





	A Light in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Texeoghea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Texeoghea/gifts).



Severed nerves sent jolts of pain up Lucifer’s sides, muscles spasmed and twitched and caused him to stop and grit his teeth. His whole back locked tight as agony coursed through him and the scars on his back - pink, ridged, and so very sensitive - prickled and burned under the cloth of his shirt. 

“Morpheus?!” he called out into the Dreaming. Around him, the world twisted and shaped itself like a kaleidoscope thrown about in an unrelenting storm at sea. Beams of light mirror and refract against each other and seem to sing from it. Lucifer was sure he would admire it any other time, but right then the most he could do was try to keep himself awake. He saw the tall figure in the distance and smiled out of relief. He felt hands cupping his cheeks and through his clouded vision he could make out Morpheus’ sharp features. His eyes fluttered closed and he collapsed into his arms. 

“Hmm,” Morpheus hummed in mild concern. He carried the body in his arms back to his Castle where it was far more stable and quieter. He held Lucifer’s head close to him to keep his dreams peaceful. Lucifer did not dream of pleasant things, or at all, unless he was with him. 

The fallen angel woke up in the soft covers of a king-sized bed, which he found rather odd when he took into consideration where he remembered falling asleep. He groaned in confusion and pain, his eyes focusing on his clothes which were piled on the floor.

“I thought you might prefer something a little more Earthly than Heavenly, Morning Star,” Morpheus said, “What is that night club of yours called? Funny, isn’t it? The Angel of light opening a  _ night  _ club?”

Lucifer threw his head back into the pillow and whined, “That’s not-- stop that, it’s not funny.”

The Sandman chuckled anyway, though it was more at Lucifer’s annoyance than his bad pun, “Why did you call to me, bright star?”

Lucifer lifted his head and breathed through the pain for a moment so he could snap at him, “Does the fact that I haven’t lifted myself from this bed, however comfortable it may be, give you any indication, you Sand Fuck?”

Said Sand Fuck moved away to ready some things and Lucifer pouted like a child at the fact he couldn’t see what was going on, “When did you rid me of my clothes, Sandy?”

“You do not need them to cover you as you have no genitalia and they hinder what I’m about to do.”

"Should have bought me dinner or a drink first..." Lucifer mumbled.

Morpheus crumpled his features together in disapproval and moved to sit beside him, but the bed didn’t shift under his weight. Gravity, it seemed, was not something that worked here unless Morpheus so wished. He held in one of his hands a carved wooden bowl of something which he dipped the other into. 

“What is that?” Lucifer asked as he recoiled into himself as best he could. He felt vulnerable and he hated it with a fiery passion. 

“It is simply olive oil and a few of my own Magicks, for lack of a better word, for healing you. Please, it is the same as what I used after I rid you of your… burdens,” he replied.

Lucifer glared at him until the pain took even the joy out of that, “Oh, just be done with it.”

Hands that were both cold and warm at the same time worked the oil into his back. Strong thumbs pushed on muscles sore from disuse, long fingers forced blood back into circulation, and for once, Lucifer was not so averse to touch. He could feel himself drifting off again as his back loosened and the pain faded. There were sure to be bruises in patches from how hard Morpheus had to press to penetrate the thick scar tissue. He felt a rather odd sensation on one of the scars that travelled down his back and thought nothing of it - perhaps some over-sensitive nerves misfiring - until it happened again. It snapped him back to reality.

“Did you just kiss my scars?” he asked warily.

“Yes,” Morpheus replied matter-of-factly, “Don’t you know the humans kiss things better? Young children dream of it and adults… they dream of kissing in a much different way.”

Lucifer pushed air out of his nose in amusement, “Always the observer, Sandy, never partaking.” 

Morpheus was quiet and continued to rub Lucifer’s back, though his touch became lighter and began to travel down his spine. The Lightbringer watched him, his mind ticking over with curiosity in the silence.

“Would you like to kiss me how  _ adults  _ dream of it?” Lucifer ventured, and then added, as he batted his eyelashes, “Oh, giver of wet dreams?”

“Yes,” he admitted immediately and far too quickly for him to have not thought about kissing the angel before.

Lucifer laughed and then clenched his teeth in pain again as the laughter, all too full and hearty, shook his sore body. 

“I mislike being so immobile, it feels as if I’ve fallen again.”

The Sandman traced Lucifer’s spine with his fingers, “An angel’s wings, even a fallen one’s, are a major part of—“

“Spare me the lecture, Sanders,” Lucifer snapped, “I’ve already heard it. From you, no less.”

He sighed, “My point is this, light of the sky, you must give yourself time to heal... physically and mentally.”

Lucifer pulled himself along the bed to the edge of it, shuffling across the sheets like a serpent. He pushed himself upwards and used the momentum to sit.  He held a finger up to the other’s pale lips, “I am healed. I will hear no more of this.”

“There is so much pain in you,” Morpheus began.

“Yes, did you not see—?”

Lucifer fell silent when he felt a hand pressed over his heart, but was quick to hit it away and stand. He marched quickly and as far away as he could, but the room brought him back. Each time it looped he grew more frustrated until finally he snarled something deep and unholy. 

“Leave me be, Dream!”

Morpheus turned to him and his eyes twinkled with light in the great darkness that filled the sockets, “I am the giver of dreams, the guidance out of nightmares and I have seen you Fall, Lucifer Morningstar. I have seen you Fall and Fall and Fall and wake screaming. I have felt your pain, your broken bones and singed feathers, your anger and your self-hatred. I have witnessed your nightmares, Samael, and in them you cannot stop falling. I command you to  _ rest _ .”

Lucifer wasn’t sure if he was glaring back at Morpheus or the night sky, but he was glaring back all the same. He felt a gentle, loving hand cup his cheek and a thumb trace the bottom half of the scar on his face. He leaned into the touch and screwed his eyes shut tight with a sigh, his mouth hung slightly open in defeat.

“ _ Rest _ ,” he repeated, “Please. Of your own accord. Make peace with your heart, shepherd of suns.”

Lucifer nodded and leaned into the other’s chest, “Help me sl—“

“Shh,” Dream brushed his fingers along Lucifer’s forehead and the angel fell into a deep slumber. He would sleep for as long as he needed and would wake of his own accord. It was always the hardest for him to get to sleep. He carried him back to the bed and laid him down, positioning the pillows so as not to strain his back. He drew his coat around himself, the flames flickered at the edges of it, and stalked over to his library. He couldn’t focus on any one book, a part of his mind always thinking about and checking in on the angel. He grew frustrated with himself and closed the book, tugged his coat over his long, pale limbs and watched Lucifer dream. He felt a sense of loneliness because, while he was certainly in Lucifer’s presence, he was not privy to his wit, his coy remarks, or the light which emenated out of his very being. He missed it; he missed  _ him.  _ Lucifer slept for what would have been two weeks if time in the Dreaming moved at all like it did on Earth. When he woke, eyes fluttering open and the muscles that should have been at the base of his wings moving beneath the layers of scar tissue, Morpheus was by his side in an instant. 

“Be still. Sit slowly. Control yourself. There are no longer any wings to stretch when you wake,” he said in a deep, steady voice which seeped into Lucifer’s mind as he obeyed and sat up. He straightened his back, each vertebrae slipping into place until his eyes snapped open and he was fully aware of reality and the tenderness with which Morpheus held him. 

Lucifer took a deep breath and sighed, “Has my resting pleased you, bestower of bedtime fantasies?”

“Come, I have made…” he paused and groaned internally before he spoke, “Coffee.”

“Did you? Or did you pluck it out of someone’s head?”

Morpheus clenched his jaw in slight irritation, but couldn’t fight the smile from his face either. He had missed this.

“I plucked it out of someone’s head, creator of stars.”

“I thought so,” Lucifer said. He used Morpheus’ shoulder to stand and moved to the space where he assumed the kitchen would be. Because the Sandman was feeling generous towards his guest, he made sure the kitchen would be wherever Lucifer had decided to venture. The fallen angel knew this and walked on confidently.

“Before you start, I’m aware you don’t need coffee to function, it is simply something I see the humans making when they wake and I thought it would be interesting,” Morpheus explained.

Lucifer banged the cupboard doors and pushed antiques to the side in the search for mugs; when he found none, he made his own. He handed one to the Sandman.

“You think I envy their domesticity?” Lucifer asked, offended by the mere suggestion. 

Morpheus looked from his own mug which had ‘Sandy’ written on it, to the one in Lucifer’s hands which read ‘Luci’, “No, but on rare occasions like this, my dear sunrise, I envy their simplicity.”

“Then kiss me,” he said, “If it’s their simple lives you desire. That is what couples do in the morning after waking, is it not?”

Morpheus reached out and clasped Lucifer’s arm, “Are you sure?”

The angel gave him a grin and emitted a soft, warm white glow as he lifted the other’s fingers from his arm and entangled them with his own, “I am always sure of the things I do, Morpheus, this is no exception.”

Lucifer used his free hand to grip the collar of the Sandman’s coat and pulled him down to kiss him. Morpheus was tender and hesitant only from inexperience; Lucifer kissed with the passion that got him cast out of Heaven. Where their forms touched Lucifer’s light was swallowed by Morpheus’ darkness and his darkness, in turn, faded into light. They pushed their very Beings into each other. In that moment they were a sunrise and a sunset simultaneously. Lucifer sucked on the other’s bottom lip as he pulled away and looked up at him through half-lidded, dreamy eyes.

“That was not quite what humans do,” Morpheus said as he scrambled to make sense of it all.

“No,” Lucifer agreed.

“It was… uniquely ours,” he added as an afterthought. 

Lucifer grinned up at him and Dream smiled back down. They took a breath together, though neither of them needed to, and exhaled.

“I must be returning home shortly,” the angel said as he ran his fingers along what was allegedly the fabric of Morpheus’ coat, “Mazikeen is lost without me.”

“Mazikeen could replace Yahweh themself and still run things perfectly well. It is your meddling that interferes with it all, I presume, correctly, might I add.”

Lucifer twirled some of the Sandman’s hair around his fingers and admired the stars that flickered in the great depths of it. He didn’t want to leave this moment, but he had certain responsibilities at Lux that required his attention.

Morpheus tilted his head, “Perhaps… if you can swallow your pride for once... I should accompany you to Lux. These realms are hard to navigate in your position.”

He tensed, opened his mouth in objection and then stilled as he realised that being accompanied by Morpheus was what he  _ wanted. _  Lucifer was one for indulgence when it suited him, which was almost always. 

“Well? Home again, home again, jiggity jig?”

Morpheus gave him a look of annoyance and took his hand, “Never speak those words again.”

They faded into both the night and the day at once.


End file.
